Treating food allergies and developmental delay (PDD-NOS/ autism) when western medicine can't help

I have a question for you…B. told me something about ear infections, sinus infections, migraines, etc…that you told her something about it being the body’s way of saying it doesn’t like something we’re putting into it (ok, so that’s a paraphrase). Well, I was wanting some more info on that if possible…I have a really good friend whose 9 month old son is on his 6th ear infection in the last few months. They said something about having to put tubes in his ears and I wanted to know if you had any recommendations or any helpful info to pass along….she’s just so discouraged. (Plus you’re quite the researcher and I trust you).

ANSWER:

Yes, there are some things that are definite probabilities. The first two things I’d check:

#1 I’d look into food allergies/intolerances. Ear infections are an extremely common problem resulting from an intolerance to a food. Although any food can cause just about any symptom in the body, there are definite culprits that are more likely.

#2 I’d have him checked out by a chiropractor – Sometimes something can be off in their neck or back from birth or from a fall and cause this and it’s simple enough to check it out and relatively cheap (not to mention painless and non-invasive) to correct too.

#1 – Back to food allergies. At this age, dairy or soy would by the first suspects, then maybe corn or wheat. And they wouldn’t necessarily have to do allergy testing to find out. In fact, I wouldn’t waste the money for tests that are not entirely reliable, at least not until I tried a few home food elimination trials on my own. Just eliminate all forms of dairy, which includes the components of casein and whey, from the diet for 2 weeks (it can take the body two weeks to clear dairy out of its system) and see if there is a change. If they are brave enough, eliminate soy at the same time since 30% of kids who are intolerant of dairy are intolerant of soy. By dairy that means all butter, cheese, milk, dry milk, etc anything in a box that in the ingredients contains the words “casein” or “whey”. Soy means soy protein, soy flour, soybean oil, etc but doesn’t usually include soy lecithin. Lecithin is so processed it rarely ever causes a reaction. That’s the simplest way to start.

If that doesn’t reveal what it is, it gets a bit trickier, as it may be multiple things, and a more complex elimination diet will be required to figure it out. Or, at this time, it may be worth it to look into allergy testing, but make sure to do both IgG and IgE so you get both the immediate response allergies and the delayed response intolerances.